Tuesday 8a - CUPE Local 79 endorse candidates for the 2026 municipal election.

0:00This is the Toronto Today podcast. I'm your host, Greg Brady. You know, we give you a big trouble traffic also, but we're joined in studio by QP local 79 president, Nazial Yaduahi, and she's in, and you just gave me a traffic report as well, and you told me the roads are crowded. Make that stop. Let's go back to July traffic. Yes, let's. Why is that happening? Bus is just buses. It's kids. It's people trying to get around by, you know, first day of school. Not the kids, the kids aren't driving, but you know, it's on the bar. Do you remember what that was like to be able to drive to high school? The first time was amazing feeling. You want to spot in the parking lot. You want everyone to see you get out of the car. You're not a, you know, you're not getting dropped off by mom and dad out front and they're waving at you and giving you like, make sure you brush your teeth at lunch time. You're not, nobody wants that in 11th grade. It's different when you're the parent trying to navigate that traffic, it's not so much fun. You, you're not in the midst of any sort of, we've had you in before to talk about labor negotiation, sign deals and whatnot. A lot of those are in the rear view mirror. Do you have anything upcoming with navigating contracts

1:01ending or negotiations for QP local 79? No, thank God. Yeah, you got a lot of. We've negotiated a whole bunch of contracts over three years. Yes, yes. Now we want to have you on because I saw a release over the weekend that the union, 32,000 frontline workers, lot in community housing, seniors housing as well. And endorsements are already in for most of the awards and for mayor as well. Your union's endorsing Olivia Chow to stay as mayor, lot of other endorsements as well. Some, some interesting names obviously that are running for the first time in council. Nators can Smith. You endorse in beaches, East York. Kevin Rupus sings a really interesting candidate in Scarborough, Southwest. And you got a couple of dual endorsements as well. Just, just lay out how you come up with putting a name to each of those awards and saying, this is who our union would endorse. So the endorsement is not new. The process is new. Unions typically do endorse candidates. I think what's new is that we wanted those endorsements to come from rank and file workers

2:01and not just from a few elected officers. And so we undertook a process that started back in May where we spoke with a few hundred of our members over a two day period and really came up with a vision. What do we want our city to look like? What are our priorities? What's important? And once we laid out that vision and we solidified it, that became the basis to which we held the candidates at the first step. And so if the candidates acknowledged and agreed with the vision that we have for the city of Toronto, then there was a survey that they filled out and the survey gave us more information about them. Of course, we hired researchers who did deep dives into all of them as well. And then we held town halls where each of them had an opportunity to come and speak to our members. Ask them questions and they voted live after every candidate. What are the biggest issues a local city councilor could do

3:02for one of your union members? And they'd say, well, that person's very proactive. That person has our best interest at heart. That personal help us with cost of living, working conditions and the rest. They're gonna speak loudly for us if they get elected. What, how does that manifest itself? I think you just said it. Like it's like these large overarching themes like cost of living, like how we're getting around the city, like the investments in public services, et cetera. So if you have somebody who shows up and says, like, first of all, we need to listen to frontline workers because they know what's happening. They live in the community, they work in the community. And also here are some of the practical ways in which we want to advocate for easier living in the city. Like public grocery options, like more housing, like reducing congestion and making TTC more accessible and less costly. You've seen probably some of the data points

4:04that document a lot of younger people are moving out of Toronto, like a lot. And the demo I looked at even a week and a half ago was 25 to 34. And that should be, that's the point. I'm long past that point in my life. I know you're shocked at that. But I'm, yeah, super shocked. I'm long past that point where you're buying your first car, you're buying your first home, you're getting, you're spending money on a wedding, you're getting ready, maybe to become a parent. That's a really big cohort to lose. Do you notice that in your union ranks that you're kind of losing what should be a really important age for the worker, what should be a really important age for purchasing power. And there's a gap there. Absolutely. And it's really unfortunate because young people coming up now can contribute so much. And when you, when they leave your city, that means they're also not contributing to the city. And they're smart. They're really young people now are very, very smart. They're smart enough also to know that they want a quality of life.

5:04Whereas I feel like when we were growing up and our parents certainly, like struggling was normal, young people are like, if I don't have to struggle, I'm not going to. And if I can't afford to live in Toronto, I'm going to go elsewhere. But what's important is that we want the city to thrive. We want good people in the city. So we need to make the investments to keep it attractive and be able to keep people. How do you do that? You have to keep the cost of living low. You have to be able to pay people enough to attract them to work here. And you just got to make housing more accessible and affordable so people can stay and work and thrive here. I think the point you make an important one is that there's always struggle. We always all start off at the low man, low woman and the totem pole of a company or a business and making less and having to do more of the weekend work, just be available wherever. What changed I think, and I don't know when it changed and there's a bunch that's responsible, a bunch of people responsible for at different levels is, you and I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. I think these kids don't. They literally have given up on ever owning a home, ever being able, even the cost, I'm sure that people

6:07deciding not to have kids or when you have kids, some of that has to be economic. We're only having one instead of maybe the three or four they forecast when they were a teenager. We're all altering those plans because of how expensive things are. Absolutely. I hear from my 19 year old, right? And he's talking about, I don't want to have children. This is not the kind of economy or the world that I want to have children in. And, and, and, you know, that's how I was at HIT you as a mom. I haven't heard that yet. I got 20 and 18 year old boys. I haven't heard that yet. It's devastating when you hear them feel so defeated. And, you know, You try and talk them into it. I do, you don't want one now. I get that, but how long a decade from now? I see, you know, it's a really good idea, honey. Yeah. Keep that perspective for another three to seven years. Yeah, maybe 10. I mean, yeah, it's, look, I, Toronto is a special place. And I think the people, it's the people who make up the city and make it so special. And we need to invest in it. We need to invest in the people who help the city go around.

7:09And, I mean, elections are an important time to think about who is going to get us there instead of regression, right? And how are we going to move forward as a city and be the first, be the world class city that we ought to be? I see, I'm so interested by a lot of the choices because what I like about the list is of, of the ward counselors that your unions endorsing is there's a lot of new names. And I think we've had a lot of people on council for a long, long time who maybe even Gord Perk set it himself. Like it's probably time for somebody else to pick up the mantle and do something different. We saw, obviously, Paul Fletcher decide not to come back very suddenly. So there's going to be new, a new, I think new faces and new ideas and politics are always good. But I do see is a very, I see a very left of center council. And I also think union members are, are everybody, right? They vote, they might vote NDP liberal conservative federally, maybe even the same provincially. But I see a very, I don't see a very centrist council. Is that a fair statement?

8:10I see very left leaning council. I think you see a council that represents, or candidates that represent where our workers are at, right? Remember, this was not something that I decided on. It was not something that a small group of executives got together and were like, we share the same political viewpoint. So let's do this. And yes, you're absolutely right. 32,000 people, you're going to have a my rate of different political ideologies and belief systems. But ultimately at the very core of it, what working class people and what public sector workers want right now are people who understand that investing in them and these services is important. And that typically tends to be people who are like middle left leaning, who really prioritized those things. And I don't think that's, you know, not untrue. I think that's a fact. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think, I think what we've noticed too, there's been a switch since I was a lot younger between federally the liberals and conservatives. And I think there's been more union endorsements. Nobody has to like this, but there's been more union endorsements in the private union

9:14sector going away from the NDP and going to the progressive conservatives. There's certainly been a push from this is what happens when any governments in a long time. The federal liberals have been in 11 years. So naturally, the conservatives will be able to say, you're squeezing the average person and the middle class family way too hard. Here's how you can ease up on them. So I think it goes beyond politics and sometimes it's just in common stay too long and they get full of themselves and they don't realize who they work for. Absolutely. And change is good. I think sometimes when you carry the same kind of political framework forward for a long time, things start to fall apart. People get stuck in their ways. And I really do think we're at a moment in time where, excuse me, people are struggling. The vast majority of people are struggling. And the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. And I think people are realizing we need to start to do things differently because the

10:15trajectory that we're on is not working out in our favor. Naz, yeah. Yadolahi is with us, QP Local 79 President in studio. Now, no surprise I mentioned earlier, but if people are just joining, your union endorsed Olivia Chow for mayor, tell me one thing that has impressed you about Olivia Chow. Give me one thing you'd like her to even put more focus on or do better. I mean, securing $2.7 billion in federal funding to help fund nonprofit housing was not nothing. You know what I mean? And she's done incredible work in moving the city forward. What I would like to see more is more deeper engagement with frontline workers and people who are managing the city so that we can move forward and manage things together in concert with each other. But really, when you think about where the city has been over the past two decades, the falling, the infrastructure is falling apart. We have a state of good repair is not in a good state.

11:18And we've fallen behind in housing to the point where there's 14 year wait lists for people to get into Toronto housing. We got it. We got to do better and we got to and I think the mayor has done a great job in a very short period of time to try to start to steer the ship in a different direction. Now, this is not a trap. You're too smart for that. But I'll pose it anyway. I mentioned so many people, younger people, finding Toronto on affordable and that number has really ticked up over the last three or four years in a post COVID world. She's been the mayor for those years. But I make the argument she's been the mayor of policy, huge property tax increases the first two years she was here and she's made life less affordable for the average Toronto and even to stay. Don't the numbers suggest that? The average, the average, the average, the average, the average, the average is a rent. So when you talk about, I'm asking about about about about 55 to 45 rent. Yeah, I think there's more renting than there are there is ownership for sure.

12:19And I think, look, it's sort of people forget that if you don't invest, where are you going to get the money to invest in services? Where are you going to get the money to invest in infrastructure? And it's been, it was the lack of taxes that led to the city kind of bleeding out and not being able to keep, it maintained its upkeep. And you know, if we want a city that's thriving, we're going to have to do our part to pay our share to keep those services and keep the keep our city alive and well. And so again, I think, are you also to be fair? Cannot make up for decades of under investment under funding in a couple of years. Of course, we've been seeing a decline, but that decline didn't come in the past three years. That decline has come over many, many more years and we're seeing the results of that. There's definitely been an under investment in some sectors, but I do see a swelling city budget that goes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger every year.

13:21So all I, what I'd ask of the mayor is look under the hood of the car and see if anything's redundant. If anything is, certainly there's got to be, we've gone, we've done it with parks and rec and some of the other things going, is everybody where they're supposed to be? Do we need every single one of you? Do we need three people to change a light bulb? It doesn't get quite that dramatic, but it's a huge budget that grows every year. I could not agree with you more on this. And you know the first place I would look is that how many managers and supervisors the city has? Do you really need a one to 10, one to 12 ratio? That's not, you don't even get that in classrooms. Do you really need a supervisor and manager for every 10, 12 workers? It's absurd. And I think there's been a lot of that happening. And if you ask me, no, where do we look first? I'd say look first. Start at City Hall, start at staff. But I would make the case in three plus years. I've never heard of Olivia Chow say what you just said. So I might vote for you instead of her because you're willing to look under the hood of the

14:23car and go, can we make some changes here? I don't think I'm willing to ever put myself in that brutal, brutal position. I tried to commit you. It's early also. What do you look for over the course of the campaign? Obviously, we've talked about cost living, but are there issues with congestion, safety, everything? You're, you know, your members work here, but they certainly care about how their neighborhoods are, how their streets are. Can they get to work on time? Can their daughter or son take the subway? Like you care about those things too, obviously. Absolutely. We've already, like, you know, our workers have been talking about how do we make TTC more affordable? How do we maintain the safety that we've, we've been able to garner over the past few years, like the city is a safer place, less crime, and the affordability crisis really is top of mind for everybody. So I would really like to see how these public grocery options play out. Would love to see how. What do you, tell me what you're doing with that. That's the second time you mentioned it. What intrigued you about that? And I just don't, public or city-owned grocery stores and how they can, because I think

15:26even the big grocery giants, like I know this was a big federal issue, price gouging and whatnot, especially during COVID, but their profit margins are not terribly significant. So how could the city make enough money off a grocery store to deliver the savings back to the residents? Well, I think they're going to have to find ways to source those things, right? Sourcing is really important. How do we source it? Ultimately, if you want to get really good at this stuff, I think figuring out how we do local sourcing is going to be really important and figuring out, and also the communities that we're delivering these options in. There are so many grocery deserts and places in the city where you don't have the options that you have in more affluent neighborhoods, right? Or in the suburbs. Or in the suburbs, exactly. If you don't have a car, that's a big thing as well. Absolutely. If you don't use a car to want to use a car, your grocery options are more limited in the city. I get that. And public options are not like, I think we look at public options as it's like alien thing. Public options should be something normal that we're talking about.

16:26I know that Avilouis is talking about it at a national level. How many telephone company options do we have? How much do we pay? What's your phone bill like every month, right? My son, actually, the other day, if I can just share a quick story. What's his phone bill like? What's his phone bill like? Well, he was too high, says mom. He was yelling, and I was like, what's going on? And he was like, my God, he's on my phone. I can't get a reception. I can understand him saying that. And I said, hey, so he's like, and I can't believe we're paying this much money for this kind of service. And I said, hey, wouldn't it be nice if there was some control over these options? And I had talked to him previously about some of the NDP policies, and he wasn't crazy about it. I said, what if we nationalize this stuff? So people have control. And these things are monitored and controlled. He's like, you know what? You know how they talk these days? Like, Loki, that's not a bad idea. Yeah.

17:27And it's like just thinking about how accustomed we've become to the way the economy is run. And that thinking about it being a different way is not a bad thing. Well, we sure should. We got to think outside the box. He didn't call the idea mid. That was important also not to call it mid. If Loki, I don't know. If he looks at one of his friends, girlfriends, and like she's mid, that's bad. Or boy, boy, those are my. Mid is bad. Yeah. It's an insult. I'm coming in. I appreciate it. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Enjoy your visits. Thanks for listening to the Toronto Today podcast. We drop the highlights of the Daily Show every weekday morning. Don't forget, you can hear the entire show on the radio at home on your smart speaker ask Alexa or say, hey, Google, play 640 Toronto or Toronto today. You can hear us on between 530 and 9 weekdays on 640 Toronto. Have a great day.